Lucid Dreams of California Highway Patrol Duties

Lucid Motors, the company behind the svelte all-electric luxury sedan that Jason Cammisa once called “a combination of Mercedes and Tesla,” and a “time machine,” might soon be responsible for chasing you down on the 405 in Los Angeles.

At least, that appears to be part of the latest idea to come from the EV brand. In a post on X (formerly known as Twitter) earlier this week, Lucid showed off a modified version of its Air sedan aimed at service in the California Highway Patrol. We gotta admit: This thing looks the business.

The blacked-out Air boasts the typical kit involved in a law enforcement vehicle: An aggressive bullbar up front, a red and blue lightbar across the top, and a siren mounted low in the center. Can we take a moment to admire those gloss-black steelies in the wheel wells? Somehow, those add to this car’s menacing presence.

There are a few artistic flourishes in the police identification here, all in good fun. First, we can see the bear in the star on the driver’s door, which encapsulates lightning bolts, no doubt a nod to the car’s all-electric powertrain. The real chuckle comes on the car’s rear quarter panel, where the phrase “protect & swerve” instead of the usual “protect and serve.” Nice.

Creative wordplay aside, would a Lucid Air actually make a good police cruiser? Well, let’s look at some stats. The EPA rates 2025-model-year versions of the Air at anywhere from 372 miles of range all the way up to 512 miles. The lower figure belongs to the base Pure, fitted with 20-inch wheels. That high watermark comes from the Air Grand Touring—the second-priciest trim—with 19-inch wheels.

The slowest Air, the Pure, can reach 60 mph from a standstill in just 4.5 seconds, while the Sapphire can do the same in less than two seconds. From a performance standpoint, all of these would leave the existing CHP Chargers and Ford Explorers for dead. Sure, a car chase wouldn’t always start when the Air has a full battery, but with the speeds these things can hit, it feels like it wouldn’t be too difficult to reel in the perp, even if they got a head start.

Now, that said, these aren’t exactly cheap things. The most attainable version begins at around $70K, and for the fast ones, you’re talking at least six figures. There are plenty of luxury accoutrements in these cars that can be stripped out, and batch pricing should help, but even more pedestrian police cruisers aren’t cheap, and we have a hard time figuring out how the math on this would pencil out.

Luckily, that’s all theoretical right now, because this was just to show that the Air participated in vehicle testing for the CHP. Stay tuned, though—you just might see a very swift EV in your rearview at some point down the road.